Only angels left standing for one West couple

Sammy Chavez, 19, answers questions from the media. Chavez was one of more than 150 people injured by the explosion in West.

WEST — The West Rest Haven nursing home rarely wanted for visitors. The nightly dominoes game was fierce, and it even had its own scaled down version of the town's annual Czech-oriented Westfest.

So in the minutes after the blast made shambles of a neighborhood, people from all over town rushed to the home, where about 137 residents were evacuated Wednesday night.

Willie “Pee Wee” and Beulah Zahirniak, whose house was leveled, described a confusion of attendants rushing wheelchairs down the street and in some cases carrying patients to staging areas at the high school football field and the local Veterans of Foreign War post.

Neighbors themselves, many suddenly homeless, were shooed away by police and other emergency responders, who told them the area wasn't safe.

The fire and explosion at West Fertilizer Co. could be felt all the way to Waxahachie. It sent more than 150 people to area hospitals and left at least 11 reportedly dead and others unaccounted for in the community about 20 miles north of Waco.

Walking wounded continued to trickle in to two Waco hospitals Thursday, doctors said, but neither emergency room saw any casualties related to the explosion in West, which leveled homes and injured more than a hundred.

Area hospitals expected patients to spend weeks recovering from their injuries.

Hillcrest CEO Glenn Robinson said two children were transferred early on to McLane Children's Scott and White in Temple and four additional patients were being treated at Scott and White Memorial Hospital, also in Temple.

Buelah Zahirniak recalled nursing home residents appearing confused as they waited with nurses and staff for vans and ambulances on loan from distant cities to relocate them.

“We were running up and down the streets trying to get to the nursing home,” she said. “It was just total chaos, but there was DPS saying, 'Are you all OK? You need to get out of here. They told us to get out of town.”

It was unclear who went where, but word around town is everyone was rescued.

A nursing home in Bellmead took in about 30, and another in Clifton had about a dozen, according to a nursing home staffer who referred media calls to corporate headquarters in Denton.

Willie Zahirniak found people he grew up with who now needed nursing care — such as Jake, whom Beulah remembered from high school, and Norman, who worked with Willie at the General Motors plant in Arlington and moved to the home after suffering a stroke. Zahirniak's 83-year-old brother, Robert, thought of Marlene, a girlfriend from his school days.

“It took me until this afternoon to find out she was alright,” he said, like the others congregating at the VFW, which was full with people helping out by handing out loaves of bread and making runs to Sam's Club — in part to take their minds off having no other place to go.

Mike Driscoll, a 33-year Navy veteran, heard the explosion from his home about a mile and a half away. His first thought was to report to the VFW, he said.

“As catastrophic as the explosion was, I knew we'd be needed,” he said.

The nursing home was destroyed, but folks at the VFW figured they'd rebuild with insurance money and maybe build something newer with updated medical facilities.

The Zahirniaks lost the home they'd kept since 1963, a place where they'd raised five children and where she kept a day care for 33 years.

Beulah had gone to pick up their grandson from religion class when they saw the fire, and she said, “Go get Grandpa.”

Then came the blast. About the only thing that wasn't completely demolished was Beulah's collection of angels.